I said nothing lasts forever and I meant it
by Sionnain
Summary: Set pre-Hard Core Logo breakup therefore, very pre-movie . BillyXJoe.


**I said nothing lasts forever (and I meant it)**

The first time Joe shoots smack, Billy doesn't know what the fuck is going on.

He walks into the bathroom and Joe is lying on the floor--(probably worse for him than the drugs, God knows what's down there, some unholy combination of piss and beer and other things)--giggling, staring up at the dirty ceiling tiles and saying, "Fucking cunt," over and over again, like it's the funniest thing he's ever heard. And hell, Billy's used to this, because Joe thinks _fucking cunt_ is hilarious even when he's _not_ high as a fucking kite. And Billy's seen Joe on all kinds of shit--going on-and-fucking-on about meaningless shit while on coke, running through the streets half-dressed and wearing Billy's hat while on speed, throwing tables across the room after too much cheap tequila.

But this is different. This is Joe lying flat on his back in a filthy club bathroom, eyes wide open but vacant, the iris of his eyes a thin band of blue around black. He's moving his right hand back and forth, like he's conducting some kind of symphony only he can see, one that lives up in the pipes and sub-flooring that passes for the ceiling of the bathroom. And the way he's laughing isn't Joe-on-coke (loud, jarring--it actually makes Billy want to punch him in the stomach to shut him up), or Joe-on-speed (he sounds kind of like Woody Woodpecker on a bender) or Joe-on-tequila (who's actually mean and doesn't laugh much at all). This laughter is a slow tumble out of his mouth and it sounds like he's underwater, and he's saying, "Billy, Billy, Billlleeeeeee", and laughing and waving his hand and Billy's tired, suddenly, his head starting to pound.

"Get up, fucker, what the hell is the matter with you?" Billy grabs for a cigarette but the pack is empty, has been for about ten minutes now, but his hand keeps sliding into his jeans like he's going to find a pack of Marlboro's magically refilled in his pocket. "You got a smoke?"

"A smoke," Joe says, the word six syllables too long, then settles back with a smile and drops his hand, his eyes drifting closed. "Don't need a smoke, man."

"Wasn't talking about you, fuckface. C'mon," Billy says, almost a whine, because he's tired and out of smokes and whisky and this is stupid--Joe can be strung out in the RV, where it's at least warm and not so fucking filthy (though that might be debatable). He kicks Joe's side with the toe of his boot, feels flesh gives way beneath the steel toe. "Get up, what the fuck?"

Joe tries to move but he can't, and he's laughing again and he looks so _peaceful_ it just makes Billy kick him a little harder. It's freezing and he's not wearing a coat.

"I will leave your stoned ass on this fucking floor, get up, get _up_." And then he notices the sleeve of Joe's ratty-ass shirt is pulled up on the left, and there's a slight smear of blood in the bend of his arm.

Oh.

Maybe it's not a surprise. Hell, what front man of a punk band _isn't_ on heroin? But Billy's not interested in finding him dead next time instead of stoned out of his goddamned mind, and besides, smack is expensive and it's not like they're pulling in a lot of cash touring every dive in Alberta. And he's getting tired of finding Joe sick or slumped over or spending all their money on blow, getting them kicked out of band houses so the RV is the only place they have left to sleep.

It takes him and Pipe both to get Joe up and moving towards the bus, arms around Joe's waist, walking with slow, stuttering steps towards the RV. John looks kind of high but probably just from pot or some kind of pill, and Pipe's always fucking crazy so it's hard to tell if he's on anything at all. Billy's had a lot of whisky and maybe a few hits off a joint, but nothing else, so it's just Joe on the smack and it's like he's at a party where the rest of them weren't invited. Maybe they weren't cool enough, or maybe Joe's just a selfish son-of-a-bitch who doesn't share, but whatever, they manage to get him in the back while trying to figure out who isn't too fucked up to drive.

Billy sits next to the bed on the floor of the RV, knees drawn up and staring down at his boots, thinking _this is my fucking life_, the fingers of his right hand strumming like he's playing guitar.

Joe is singing softly under his breath, words all blurred together like one of those paintings that look like shit up close and don't make sense until you stand far away, across the room maybe, and then all the swirls and smears of paint come together and there's a picture, all nice and pretty and obvious, and how the fuck did you not see it before? Billy listens to Joe sing, voice all molasses-slow and totally fucked up, and wonders if Joe's like that, too; if all the pieces that are broken and scattered will make sense when Billy's far away, not caught up in it, not part of the goddamned fucking painting like he is now.

Right now, he's pretty sure the painting fucking _sucks_.

The next morning, Joe doesn't mention it and Billy doesn't ask. They pull into a diner and Joe's back to normal, or as normal as he ever is the night after a show. Billy's freezing, tired, and the headache is getting worse behind his eyes and he just wants coffee and something in his stomach to soak up the booze. Joe's eyes are tired before he puts on his sunglasses, even though it's cloudy out (and fucking snowing even though it's April; wet snow hovering _just_ on the edge of freezing rain, fucking _Edmonton_), but he hits Billy on the shoulder, knuckles hard through Billy's coat and sweater, and says, "Your _eyeliner_ is all smeared, pretty boy."

Joe's voice is loud enough that Billy winces from the sound of it, bouncing around his head like a fucking hockey puck against the boards. _Stop shooting up all our cash so I can stay somewhere with a fucking shower, asshole._ Joe is walking around without a coat, grinning like some kind of deranged idiot, and yeah, that's usual. Joe Dick, Hard Core Logo, too Hard Core For the Fucking Weather.

Billy goes into the bathroom in the restaurant--all bright fluorescent lights and drywall and no one lying on the floor--and washes the eyeliner off his face.

* * *

The next time it happens, Billy catches him at it.

He walks into the "green room" (a shithole with a couch and a fridge that hasn't been plugged in since '78) and sees Joe on the couch, hunched over, eyes all focused and bright as he watches some guy Billy doesn't know doing something with a spoon and a lighter. There's stuff on the little table in front of the couch; packets of something in baggies, syringes, cotton balls.

Billy looks at Joe, and he _knows_ that look on Joe's face, the one that says "This is new and I could fucking die so I better do it right _now_," and Joe's leg is bouncing up and down and wouldn't it be funny if Joe's snorted up some coke and then did smack, and the goddamn drugs cancel each other and leave him dead sober? Billy doesn't say anything, just finds the chair in the corner and falls into it, slouching down low, reaching for a smoke and watching. The guy is giving a lecture like it's fucking school or something, showing Joe what to do with all the shit on the table, and Joe's still wired and going "Yeah, yeah, _yeah_," in that way he has that means he's not actually listening.

Billy watches Joe roll up his sleeve, watches him tie his belt around his arm and place the needle flat against his skin. He looks over at Billy like he's waiting for something, maybe for Billy to tell him _stop_ or _we've got a show, you dumb fuck_. Billy just shrugs and slouches lower in his seat, pressing the bottle to his mouth, feeling the warm wet burn of the whisky as he tilts the bottle back and swallows. Joe plunges the needle and winces a little. When Joe falls back against the couch Billy turns his face away and doesn't watch what happens next. He's seen Joe strung out before, this show is old news, and he's not Joe's fucking mother.

That night, they're nearly booed off stage. Joe is clumsy and dumb, and he forgets the words to _Ten Buck Fuck_, and instead of his usual manic energy it's like someone's shot him with a tranquilizer dart. Joe is _bright_ on stage, burning up every night over and over until Billy's sure there won't be anything left onstage but ashes. He works it like he's fucking--the stage, the audience, the mic, Billy, moving up and close and pounding pounding _pounding_, over and over again, it's all him, everything he has, and maybe he needs the drugs to make him do it every night. Because Billy loves being on stage, loves to feel the music when it's _right_, but it's not his heart and soul laid out bare and pulsing. Not like Joe.

But tonight Joe's all wrong, slow and languid, crooning where he's supposed to be shouting and saying, "Shh, shh," in the mic between songs like he's in a fucking library or something. He's mumbling again and Billy looks over at Pipe, who shrugs and starts laughing and slows his drum beat to match. Billy tries, he does, he steps out of his comfort zone and hip-checks Joe, tries to get him wound up and worked up and _on_, but it doesn't work. Joe just stands there and smiles and drifts off, spacey, and Billy is maybe going to have to kill him later because _what the fuck_. Go figure that Joe Dick is the one fucking punk singer who can't do a show on heroin. Joe is holding the microphone between his hands and singing too far away, then too close, words all jumbled together.

He comes out of it a little by the end, gets some of his energy back, but it's not like it's supposed to be and it's barely good enough to save them from getting cups of lukewarm beer or lit cigarettes thrown at them. It's still terrible and they all know it; the audience knows it, Pipe and John know it, the two girls waiting by the back door know it but don't care. Billy gives them a brush-off with a curt word and grabs Joe's arm and pulls him outside into the cold air, back around the club where the RV is parked.

"What the fuck was that?" he asks, biting out the words, angry and realizing his coat's still inside. He finds a cigarette, thank God, the last one in the pack. It takes him a few seconds to get the cigarette lit in the wind, but he's grateful for the brief flare of heat from the lighter against his bare fingers.

Joe shrugs, leaning against the RV, not looking cold at all. "Shit fucks you up, man," he says, and that's the fucking understatement of the goddamn _year_ and Billy is torn between laughing and wanting to punch Joe in his fucking face.

"Yeah, you think? Who the fuck are you, Sid Vicious? C'mon, Joe, don't do that shit again." Billy inhales the cigarette and feels the burn in his lungs, exhales slowly as the smoke mixes with his breath and forms a thick white cloud in the muted light of the parking lot. It's pretty fucking ironic he's giving Joe lectures about doing drugs when all he wants to do is go back and have another fucking drink, but there you have it.

"Fuck you, Billy, half the goddamned punk bands out there--they're _all_ on smack. Why the lecture? You worried about me?" Joe asks, head cocked, and he looks like a twelve year old boy with his hands shoved in his pockets and his body bent in an adolescent slouch against the RV.

He is, but Billy just shrugs and says, "Worried about you fucking up the band," because that's the same thing, Joe _is_ the band and they all know that. "Just wait until the damn show's over, fucker. And I'm not picking your ass up from a bathroom floor again," Billy mutters, raking a hand through his hair. He wants his coat, some whisky, some heat. Maybe a burger. It's not like he's that fucking hard to please, is he?

Joe walks forward and crowds against him, too tall and too much, but there's still enough of the drug in him to take the edge off his usual crowd-you-against-things routine, which involves more shouting and a lot more hands. Billy feels his back hit the RV—which is fucking freezing--and looks up as Joe leans down, filling his space with heat and Joe and then he's kissing him, slow and easy, and Billy kisses him back half-assed before shoving him away and muttering, "Fuck you," low and rough, still holding his cigarette.

"Yeah, if you want," Joe says cockily, but Billy just rolls his eyes and shoves harder and Joe backs up easy enough.

"You couldn't get it up for anything," Billy tells him, his fingers freezing as he brings the cigarette up to his mouth again.

"Look who's talking, whisky-dick," Joe says, laughing, and Billy mutters and ducks past him but, yeah, okay, this is at least normal. Billy turns to walk back to the club. The ground beneath his feet is dirt, frozen and dusted with snow. Billy thinks every single joint they've played the last six months had dirt parking lots, and thinks how far away this reality is from what he thought about when he first picked up a guitar and said, _Yeah, this is what I want do, this is it, I'm going to be a rock star,_ or when he and Joe used to sit in his mom's basement and get high and talk about chicks and all the weed they could score when they were famous. Instead he's in fucking Alberta and he's freezing and Joe's been shooting heroin and they're not even famous enough yet for this to be anything but pathetic if Joe fucking _dies_. There's some chicks and weed, sure, but it's nothing like he thought it would be.

"Hey, Billy?"

Billy stops walking and turns, looking over his shoulder. Joe is still standing there, the light from the lamp cold and white falling around him like a halo. His head is ducked down and his voice sounds sheepish when he speaks.

"I don't like that shit," Joe says, shrugging. He stands still for a moment and then jogs to join him, out of breath even from that short distance. "Gimme some good ol' blow any day. Fuck Sid Vicious, that cunt. I'm Joe fucking Dick. Heroin's for fucking pussies."

Billy stares at him a long time and something relaxes inside of him, something that'd been tense since he found Joe lying flat on the floor in that Edmonton bathroom. He nods, jerking his head towards the club. "Yeah. C'mon, fuckhead, it's freezing out here."

Joe gives an easy shrug, because it's all so easy and Joe loves this, loves sleeping in that piece of shit RV and playing in dives and eating breakfast at diners that don't even have names. He doesn't care that his sweater is ratty and riddled with holes and will smell of smoke and beer until the end of fucking time. He doesn't care that he's probably out of money and they're not going to have smokes or a decent place to sleep, or whisky, or anything that makes any of this fucking worthwhile. Because this is all Joe's ever wanted, and maybe this _is_ what Joe envisioned in Billy's mom's basement after all.

And Joe's true to his word. For the rest of their nights in Edmonton he doesn't touch smack, doesn't shoot up; he sticks to coke and speed and bounces around like a possessed fucking Labrador retriever all the damn time, and fucks Billy senseless afterward in the RV when Pipe and John are too passed out to notice. Billy goes down on him in the alley behind the club a few nights later, and Joe puts his hands in Billy's hair and he's making sounds like he's fucking _dying_. Then Joe does it in the bathroom to Billy the next night, so Billy can see himself in the mirror; pressed up against the wall, eyes heavy-lidded and mouth parted, hands fisted in Joe's stupid fucking sweater.

And it's good, it's fine, it's like it should be, sure. But as they drive, Billy stares out of the window and sees the snow melting, knows that spring is right around the corner and everything is starting to thaw. A few nights later Joe's slurring on stage and fucked up again, on something that could be smack or could just be a bad line, who knows. Billy stands outside, chain-smoking, and watches Joe dry-heave in the parking lot. He thinks about the number he's got in his pocket that some guy gave him in Calgary, an agent or something named Ed from Vancouver, and he thinks about calling him.

Because they're out of money again, Joe snorted it up or Pipe swallowed it with some vodka or fuck, maybe it's Billy's cigarettes or his whisky--they're legal but not free. It doesn't matter, they're just fucking _broke_. And the thing is, Billy is standing across from Joe and all the messed up pieces aren't making any sense at all, and he's starting to wonder if they ever will.


End file.
